'''Jehovah's Witnesses''' appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century in the USA. Their founder, Charles Taze Russell [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell], was Christian, but became influenced by [[Arianism|Arian]] and [[Seventh Day Adventism|Seventh-Day Adventist]] teachings.

'''Jehovah's Witnesses''' appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century in the USA. Their founder, Charles Taze Russell [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell], was Christian, but became influenced by [[Arianism|Arian]] and [[Seventh Day Adventism|Seventh-Day Adventist]] teachings.

Revision as of 14:59, January 11, 2006

Jehovah's Witnesses appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century in the USA. Their founder, Charles Taze Russell [1], was Christian, but became influenced by Arian and Seventh-Day Adventist teachings.

The heresy of Jehovah's Witnesses is clearly presented in their books; some of which are the following:

Their book "The Truth that leads to eternal life," P. 24: [The Holy Spirit is not a Person, but God’s effective Power.]

Their book "Let God Be True", P. 113: [The allegation of the clergy that the Holy Spirit is a third Spiritual Person, is an allegation based on a weak basis. It is the result of bad translation of the Greek original text, giving a word that means Person. But actually the origin means "breeze" or "wind", for as the breeze or the wind is invisible so also is God's Spirit. Whenever God’s Spirit comes upon a person, that person receives an authorization from God to perform a certain work. The Holy Spirit is the Power of God Almighty and Invisible. He is the Power that motivates God's servants to do His will.]

Their book "This is eternal life", P. 176: [The Spirit is Power not a Person. He is the Effective Holy Power originating from the bountiful source God.]

Their book "Talk from the Holy Scriptures", P. 132: [God's Holy Spirit is His Effective Power.]

To sum up, their denial of the Hypostatic Nature of the Holy Spirit is a part of their denial of the Three Persons. Accordingly they deny the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Jehovah's Witnesses also believe that Jesus Christ is the Archangel Michael. They say that Jesus Christ Himself does not have an immortal soul, but gained immortality as a reward for His success in the test and for His faithfulness to the Father until death.

Jehovah's Witnesses have their own false translation of the Bible, in which they have altered many verses to suit their doctrines. For example, John 1:1 in their New World Translation reads, "In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." Other verses worth noting in this context include Acts 20:28 (reads "with the blood of His own" instead of the correct "with His own blood"), Luke 23:43 ("Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise" instead of the correct "Assuredly I say to you: 'today you will be with Me in Paradise'" - note the different meanings of 'today'), and 1 Timothy 3:16.

They believe in numerous resurrections, each one being for a particular group of people, and in an eternal earthly paradise as a literal fulfilment of Isaiah 65:21: "They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit" [earthly resurrection for the good (the "remnants" or the "other sheep"), with the exception of 144,000 (the "little flock") who would go to "Heaven"].

They do not believe in the immortality of the soul (sharing this belief as well as that of the earthly paradise with Seventh Day Adventists). Instead, they believe in the annihilation of the wicked (including, according to their beliefs, the annihilation of both Satan and Adam, the first man), i.e., they do not believe in the eternal punishment of sinners. They also do not believe in the intercession of the departed saints.

Jehovah's Witnesses predicted that Jesus would come in 1914 to judge the Earth and annihilate the wicked. When nothing supernatural happened in 1914, they changed the year to 1925 then many times thereafter.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept whole blood transfusions (even when life-saving) based on their false interpretation of Acts 15:28, 29.